Kindlon: Seeing 'missed opportunities'

Lee Kindlon says justice system could serve clients, community better

By Robert Gavin

Updated 10:54 am, Monday, May 21, 2012

Primary day is Election Day in the race for Albany County district attorney.

In September, incumbent David Soares and challenger Lee Kindlon lock horns in a Democratic race that, for all intents, will decide who holds the office for the next four years. No GOP candidate has surfaced in the heavily Democratic county.

Soares, 42, stunned the political establishment when he upset his predecessor, Paul Clyne, in a primary in 2004. With two terms and one easy re-election under his belt, Soares hopes his record will propel him to a third term and past his first significant challenge.

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Kindlon, 35, the son of high-profile Albany defense attorney Terence L. Kindlon, brings experience as a defense attorney, military prosecutor and Iraq war veteran to the race. He, too, is running on Soares' record — and says it is time for a change.

Could another upset be in the works, or will Soares cruise to re-election?

ALBANY — Lee Kindlon did not plan to follow in his father's footsteps — let alone run for district attorney.

In 1999, the son of high-profile defense attorney and decorated Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Terence L. Kindlon was living with two friends above a gourmet deli on Manhattan's West Side. He had moved to New York City to become a writer and was working at McCann-Erickson, one of the largest advertising firms in the world.

"It was fun," said Kindlon, 35, in an interview at his Delmar home, "but I didn't really find the work engaging. I just kind of saw it as a job and it didn't hold any sort of fascination for me. I really started to pay attention to what else I could do and what else I may want to do. Law school kind of came out of that."

After passing the bar exam in 2002, Kindlon returned to active duty in the Marine Corps, from the reserves, to be a military lawyer, where he prosecuted military crimes and served in Iraq. He also met and married his wife, Liz, and became the father of three boys.

And now, Kindlon wants to defeat Albany County District Attorney David Soares in September's Democratic primary.

"I kind of kept it under my hat for a little while," Kindlon said. "I talked to my wife and my dad and a few friends here and there. We gave it a couple months to think about and really make sure we wanted to do it. And then we filed. I'll say over the past year, it's hard. But it has been a very encouraging process."

Kindlon, who left active Marine Corps duty and began working at his father's law firm in 2006, said that starting in November 2010 he had a "series of realizations" that the justice system was not serving his clients or the community as well as it could. He had been content to work with his father but decided the county needed a more hands-on district attorney.

"Over the past year or so, I have seen more and more missed opportunities on both sides — things I think the (prosecution) could do a lot better, and I think some defendants are getting stuck with some pretty raw deals because of those missed opportunities," Kindlon has said.

As primary day approaches, the race is intensifying. Kindlon criticizes Soares almost daily on matters ranging from office management to the district attorney dating a secretary in his office. In turn, Kindlon's allocation of time between his private cases and a job he took in the county's alternate public defender's office has also factored into the race. Kindlon accuses Soares' supporters of raising a bogus issue and playing dirty politics.

Many of Kindlon's most ardent backers are defense attorneys and police union officials. But is that enough support for Kindlon to win?

"Sure, he has a chance. Primaries are unpredictable because the turnout tends to be low," said Siena College Institute pollster Steven Greenberg. But Democratic primaries, he said, tend to bring out left-leaning voters.

"David Soares comes from the left side of the Democratic party which may give him a built-in advantage," Greenberg said. "That said, primary races this far out — I think it would be foolish to try to make a prediction as to who's going to win come September."

Eight years ago, Soares, then a little-known prosecutor, toppled District Attorney Paul Clyne in a stunning upset. Soares had a signature issue: changing the Rockefeller drug laws. Kindlon has his own lightning rod topic: Soares.

Kindlon is seizing on his opponent's lack of actual trial experience as a key issue. Kindlon's experience as a Marine Corps prosecutor included the high-profile case against a Marine Corps officer who shot two Iraqis to death in 2004. "It was a case that originally started off with a lot of support from the Marine Corps," Kindlon said. "But very quickly all that support really disappeared. It very quickly became a very unpopular case to prosecute, but we stuck with it. Eventually the charges were dismissed but I think that's where I learned the value of sticking to your oath as a prosecutor and doing the perhaps unpopular thing because that's what your oath demands."

Kindlon has attributes that would help any candidate. He was senior class president of Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown, Mass., where he was captain of the track and football teams. An offensive lineman, he broke his leg in a 1997 game — and played the last 10 minutes of the game with the injury. He also played football at Williams College, where he worked as a sports writer. He earned his law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Kindlon grew up with his mother, Mimi Evans, on Lenox Avenue in Albany. She and Terry Kindlon divorced when Lee was a child and he moved with his mother to Massachusetts.

Kindlon's parents both support his run for district attorney. Terry Kindlon gave at least $3,500 to his son's campaign and loaned him another $20,000.

Lee Kindlon said working at Kindlon & Shanks, which his father runs with his wife, Laurie Shanks, allows him to see his father every day for the first time.

"We can spend an hour talking about the intricate details of some appellate case and then a couple minutes later I can tell him about the latest exploits of his three grandsons here in the house," Kindlon said.

The candidate quickly recalls the precise day he met his wife — Feb. 23, 2003 — in a Washington, D.C., bar. By July, Kindlon was shopping for engagement rings. The next year, they were married.

"One of the things that drew me to Lee is his hard-work ethic and being a Marine — because it's not easy," Liz Kindlon said. "There are many other jobs that you can make a lot more money and work a lot less hours. But I admire his dedication and his wanting to give back to the community and service."

Kindlon's wife was pregnant with their first child, Drew, when he was deployed to Iraq in September 2005. Kindlon says he was told he would be stationed in western Iraq, where it would be relatively quiet. Then he learned he would be in Fallujah, at a large, safe base with no reason to worry.

"I was there for like two days when an infantry battalion, which is about 1,000 Marines altogether, came and said, 'OK, what are you doing?'" Kindlon said. "I said, 'What do you mean 'what am I doing?' The colonel said, 'Come with us, we need a lawyer.' I grabbed all my stuff and then I remember I was on my first patrol within two weeks. I'm suddenly walking down the street in Fallujah with an M-16, loaded, looking around, and loaded M-9 pistol ... and wondering just what had transpired over the last two weeks to get me to this particular spot."

Terry Kindlon, a Purple Heart recipient, survived being shot in the head while serving as a Marine infantryman in the Vietnam War. His son escaped Iraq without injury. And he never had to use his weapon in Iraq. He's made a living representing, among others, those accused of using guns illegally in the Capital Region. Now he wants to be on the law enforcement side.